Customer Application Engineer

About the company

I’m working with a publicly listed semiconductor company that’s growing fast, with a strong position in automotive, industrial, aerospace and defense markets. Their business unit is the fastest growing part of the company, driven by demand from drones, space, satellite communications and next generation defense systems.

They’ve grown their sales and marketing teams quickly. Now they’re doubling the Customer Engineering team to support that growth over the long term. This is a newly approved role and one of several hires in the team.

About the role

As a Customer Applications Engineer II, you’ll be the lab and validation engineer behind the Customer Engineering team, the group that solves the hardest technical problems customers bring.

When a customer runs into a problem in their system, you rebuild it in the lab, measure it, debug it and find the root cause. You’ll build and maintain advanced lab setups using high end test equipment, write Python scripts to automate measurement and characterization, and help develop the evaluation and validation methods the team relies on.

You’ll work closely with senior customer engineers, system architects, product marketing and R&D. Several of them have spent decades in wireless, RF and systems engineering. It’s an ideal environment to grow fast, and there’s a clear path into senior and customer facing roles.

Key responsibilities

• Build, run and maintain lab setups for measurement, characterization and validation of semiconductor products in customer systems
• Reproduce customer issues on the bench and carry out debug and root cause analysis
• Measure and analyze phase noise, jitter, spectral purity, signal integrity and power supply noise
• Develop Python test automation using instrument control (PyVISA, SCPI, GPIB)
• Support evaluation boards, reference designs and customer design ins
• Validate system performance in target applications across automotive, industrial, aerospace, defense and communications
• Write clear test reports, application notes and technical documentation
• Feed lab findings back to product marketing and R&D to shape future products

Required experience and skills

• BS or MS in Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering or a related field
• 3 to 4 years of experience in applications engineering, hardware engineering, validation, characterization, test or product engineering
• Strong analog and digital electronics fundamentals
• Understanding of PLLs, clock distribution, oscillators, jitter and phase noise
• PCB design awareness: layout, decoupling, grounding, trace routing and impedance matching
• Hands on lab experience with spectrum analyzers, oscilloscopes, signal generators and power supplies
• Python scripting for lab automation and data analysis
• Strong debugging and problem solving skills on hardware and system level issues
• Clear written and verbal communication

Preferred experience

• Background in RF, wireless or communications systems (cellular, 5G, WiFi, GNSS, satellite communications)
• Experience with phase noise analyzers, VNAs or other high performance RF test equipment
• Embedded C or firmware experience
• MATLAB, LabVIEW or other automation and analysis tools
• Exposure to automotive, industrial, aerospace or defense applications
• Experience supporting customers or working alongside applications or FAE teams

You don’t need prior experience with their product category. Strong engineering fundamentals matter far more, and full training is provided.

Why join

• Join the fastest growing business unit in a profitable public semiconductor company
• Learn from some of the most experienced systems and RF engineers in the industry
• Work with world class lab instrumentation
• Clear path into Senior Customer Engineer and customer facing roles
• Competitive base salary plus RSUs, which have been a big part of total pay
• Full benefits including 401k, medical, dental, vision and parental leave

About IC Resources

IC Resources is a specialist semiconductor and deep tech recruitment firm with 27 years in the market and offices across the US, UK and Germany. We partner with chip companies from early stage startups to global public companies.